Doge

Coming to mind (my mind is slower now) is Steve Hegg downhill to track. I knew a speed skater girl before '84 who was trying track. It didn't stick. The carrot there was Olympic Medal.

There is a new kid on LUX and doing track also coming from skiing.

That whole pull or push thing is subtle and subjective, but I think it is a real factor.

miyata man

Injury is another significant factor. For as hard and gritty as bike racing is the incidence of sport specific injuries is a lot lower than almost anything else. The move from motorcycle racing or motocross into road cycling being a prime example.

himespau 

Wasn't RacerEx an example of that? I don't know about the injury part, but I thought he was one that moved over from motorcycles to master's racing with much success. Could be thinking of someone else.

carpediemracing 

Local here is racing for CCB. He started racing in late 2009 as a 5. No real formal training but in 2010 he went from 5 to 2 and placed 2nd or 3rd in his first P12 crit. When I raced against him in 2010, for the couple months he was a 3, he won every race we both entered. He was incredibly fluent in the field, very comfortable in the pack, etc. I'm really curious how he learned all this stuff. I asked him if he'd quit racing and picked it back up. He said he just started riding the year before.

I think new riders should do:
1. Handling drills. Bumping side to side. Front wheel touching. Falling drills. Probably use body armor for a bit.
2. Cornering drills. Learning to corner on different surfaces at speed, especially in the wet. This may involve body armor as well (like motorcycle stuff).
3. Pack riding drills.
4. Wind reading drills.

The best new riders are incredible strong. That makes them good in the lower categories. But only the smarter ones get through the upper bits. By making a strong racer think more they'll be forced to become better racers.

Ygduf

Half the cyclists out here are ex-fat people. The other half are ex-runners.

TMonk

ex runner here

Doge

Unfortunately it works the other way for an ex-cyclist. But I run.

Doge

How good were you as a runner? (not calling you out, curious).
How long was the transition.

Focus is TTT, but seems there is now general riding interest.

Wylde06

I fall in the ex-fat category. Still fat, just much less so right now than I was

miyata man

I think specializing in a single track event is a better comparison than any of the road racing variants. The environment is very controlled with a lot of drills and strength work. In that scenario I think a skilled coach could build a TTT squad from athletes in other sports. Focusing only on riding a TT bike in close proximity for months is probably a lot more than experienced road racers will do.

Where I see a really big training advantage is cyclists ride. Nearly every other sport incorporates a lot more weights and cross training. For example, swimmers do an insane amount of calisthenics that work every single mm of movement in any given stroke. Swimming alone would produce a more lopsided effect no matter how industrious you are about targeting everything. Learning how produce the maximum amount of power in the TT position benefits from this type of strategy.

mattm

What about ex-smokers like me??

globecanvas

or ex-presidents?!


(NSFW cheesy 80's filmmaking (and language))

miyata man

Try https://www.bikeforums.net/420-rollingyourown ya reformed hippie.

TMonk

Never very good objectively because I wasn't competitive. I would just run for 30 - 60 minutes at a time in college, 4-5 times per week.

Racer Ex 

Nope, that was me. Know we have at least a couple of other folks who did that transition as well. A lot of mc road racing transfers over pretty well to bike racing; certainly the bike handling, cornering, and a fair bit of the tactics of drafting and passing.

Doge

That was me when officiating and now 3 days.

Naw - this kid is a 10 hour a week runner. He is very light, maybe too light.
When I posted he was in for the TTT, on a call this afternoon I'm told he's wanting to race. My son says he's training more on a bike now with flat platform pedals and tennis shoes than anyone else on the team. I think we found him a bike today.

wktmeow

Checking in

mollusk

I stared road riding in the 1970's. By the early 1980's I was riding weekend rides with local racers and doing grunt work at local races, but I wasn't racing but into the racing culture. A few years later I pretty much stopped road riding for a while but still bike commuted and played other sports (basketball and fencing mostly). Once I hit 50 I couldn't take the body punishment of basketball anymore (I was still playing the "A" game at the gym at UF against guys that were on the football team and many former Division 1 players).

So I started road riding again.

At 55 I started racing.

I won my first race as a Cat 5.

I spent all 10 races in my Cat 5 penance before racing Masters even though I had lots of experience in the local fast group ride and riding with racers on weekends much earlier in my life. I knew how to ride in a race group and I knew how not to be a danger, but I wanted to try a bunch of stuff. I did not give a rats hindquarters about how well I placed.

Let me tell you that geezer Masters is a lot harder than Cat 4. Small fields with former National champions leave you no place to hide. Those guys with team mates know how to "f" you over no matter how strong you are, but that is bike racing.

Ttoc6

I was a state level xc runner in high school. Came over to cycling when I started college, and I'd say I've taken a pretty normal progression in the sport. First year basically just raced collegiate. Second year got a bit more involved and did some summer crits. Last year I raced everything I was able to outside of an injury and got my Cat 3 upgrade. This year I've taken my training seriously, worked with a bit of structure and put in many more hours.

The fun part of this story is my dedication to running and the results are almost the exact same, but four years eariler. Every year I ramped up dedication and saw myself bust through walls and get better. That seems to be how it goes for me. Not really gradual progress, but steps.

I've still never won a race on the road. I've won one beginners cx race and one race on the track and have plenty of podiums in crits and circuit races. That's it. I would say I'm not really much of a gifted athlete (hermatocrit in the mid-high 40's, lived at sea level my entire life) but I've managed to get by through maintaining a large base since high school. Never really taking a ton of time off from any sort of athletic endeavor.

Kinda rambled there, but I think my anecdote might help you, @Doge.

topflightpro

I played golf through high school.

And I mastered 12-oz curls, 1.5 oz tabatas in college.

Doge

That is pretty much ideal.

Thanks.

hubcyclist

i sold my hybrid bike last week, it wasn't a particularly nice bike or anything, but it helped me get into this crazy hobby and I lost 60lbs riding it over the course of a fall/winter. but mainly it's only served to haul a kid trailer, and it's become one too many as I finalize my cheapo steel cx build.

I've never done much bike work, aside from changing crank/bb and basic tuning, so it's been fun to build a bike from the frame up. i'm still fumbling around with the cantilever brakes, but the gears are working pretty well (I have a claris set up with microshift 8 speed shifters). hopefully will be road worthy soon

rubiksoval

I went from cycling (as a 1) to a couch potato for four years to a runner for two years (16:48 5k, 35:31 10k) and then back to a cyclist. I don't feel like doing one made the transition to another any easier. Running was hellacious every time I stopped for a few days and restarted. Then it just broke me to the point where I could barely even walk so I had to quit and take cycling back up. Cycling took a few months to get back going again.

Running at cycling weight was a pure game-stopper, though. I had to lose 10 lbs just to be competitive-ish (in my area with other non-young people). Cycling doesn't matter as much for the races I generally do. Put 10 lbs back on, which I don't particularly like and will try much harder to rectify in the offseason, but doesn't seem to impact most of my performances like it did in running.

I know two ex-collegiate runners, though, and both are skinny and both have ungodly vo2 max and aerobic abilities. Both can drop me on climbs with very little training. It's...humbling. So skinny runner to cyclist seems like a good transition to make.

Doge

Junior team director was riding for La Vie Claire (Hinault)/ 7 Eleven. He mentioned - it really isn't all that high for many world tour riders with a low bar ~60, it was more grit and endurance and recovery they need. I didn't look up the numbers, but thought that was interesting.

Certainly weight matters for hills. As this was initially a mostly flat TTT focus, I think being heavier might help more. TTT was/is about 7,000' so I expect vo2 will play in more. If not that, just living at 7,000' helps. Rather, it hurts those that don't. There is some data to show those that live higher have less muscle mass, and are even at a disadvantage competing low. That will also affect vo2.

miyata man

Watching the P123 crit last night some college kid knocks my bike and steps backwards on it while staring through a 150mm zoom lens stuck to his SLR. I blow it off and tell him to be more careful. Go to ride home and my RD hanger is so bent I can hardly find a gear. Spent all morning trying to find a shop to throw a tool on it so I don't miss the two hottest group rides of the week. No luck.